Episode Summary

House must fire one of his doctors and leaves them to think about it while they deal with an overweight 10-year old child who suffered a heart attack as the result of taking diet pills. House is also faced with a woman who won't accept surgery for a 30 lb. tumor because she wants to remain overweight.moreless

Really emotional plot for the patient

I thought this was on e of the best that really made me re-evaluate my views towards obese people. Not that I am prjudice against them but I always assumed it was there fault for eating to much and never really thought about genetics even though I knew genes could be the cause. An overweight 10-year old child who suffered a heart attack is brought in while the team turn against each other when House must fire one of his doctors. Desperate times calls for diet pills which turns out to be partly the cause but a tumour is the cause of her weight problem and by the end of the episode she looked great!moreless

This is a very special plot.

I think that this episode would bring obese kids, and adults, to relize the dangers of children taking weight loss pills. I think that it is their own fault for getting fat, but i never really thought genetically. Even if they try to exercize and eat right, not much hels because it's a genetic trait. And some are just big boned. But anyway, at the end of the show, the girl looks great! I really liked how this script was written and it shows just a portion of what overweight kids go though, like when Seth teased her about how she's jumping slow and how the ground hurts more than she does. Very emotional for some people.moreless

House has to makes a choice.

An amazing episode, one of the best episodes of Season 1, House has to make a choice who to fire because of stupid Vogler. I'm just hating this guy more & more, Anyways an interesting plot since you really can't pick one. He picks Chase, but when you find out he ratted him out, it's like wow! And then with the whole thing with to pick another one, I felt like punching the guy in the face. The patient plot line was an amazing key point to the story, she even loses weight after the tumor gets out, sort of gruesome but a great way to show the truth. I hated the kids that picked on her, they were real jerks. The other plot, with the tumor in the clinic girl's stomach, I love her, she is hysterical, turns out she's cheating, an amazing well written episode.moreless

An overweight ten year old girl has a heart attack, a woman with a 30 pound tumor refuses to have surgery to remove it, and Vogler demands House fire one of his team.moreless

I enjoyed this episode, despite the usual gore, because it dealt with a current issue in a couple of unexpected ways.

A ten year old girl, who is very overweight, has a heart attack during gym. Not only is the typical thought about, but the initial cause of her distress is diet pills she shoplifted. In typical HOUSE fashion, she gets worse. The eventual corect diganosis at least shows that not all obesity is caused by "shovelling food" in one's face, as my fave Aussie doc noted in the episode.The tumor lady tries to use the typical line of women that are plus-sized, but it covers an unexpected reason that shows very plainly that people are people, no matter what they look like outwardly. The little girl's eventual diagnosis was a nice reminder that obesity is in fact a symptom of some diseases or conditions and that folks presenting obesity shouldn't just be considered slobs or pigs. If I recall correctly, the older Mrs. Bush had a brush with thyroid problems that resulted in weight gain, and that feistly lady is anything but a lazy, do-nothing eater!As for the Vogler subplot, my husband was not impressed with Mr. V's supposed intellegence- "He's made a brilliant, bitter man angry." I added that the man also knew about medicine!I highly recommend this series anyway, but this was a thoughtful episode as well.eta: spacing is good!moreless

I loved the episode, I hated Chase and Cameron.

I loved the episode, I hated Chase and Cameron. What a role reversal- they're usually the nice guys of the show, and yet this episode completely turns that on its head. Chase is judgmental and pigheaded; Cameron is delusional. I was screaming at the tv every single scene Chase kept insisting it was all the poor girl's fault that she was overweight and ill- "if she'd just get off the couch and stop shoving food down her throat"- it irritated me so much! I've never had much of a problem with him before, but that just ruined his character for me, the insensitivity and arrogance that he showed. Cameron was more impressive now that she ditched the little girl lost routine, peace maker and resident suck up [okay, harsh, but she does get grating every once in a while]- the feisty element I cheered for, but the cringeworthy line to House that "you can't handle your feelings for me" just had me clutching my head in pain...moreless

Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (3)

House deduces that Lucille has been cheating on her husband from the color of her children's eyes. Both Lucille and her husband have brown eyes while most of their children have blue. Brown eyes are a dominant trait, but we know that Lucille must have the gene for both brown and blue eyes or else none her children could have blue eyes. Theoretically her husband could have the same mix of genes and then every child would have 25% chance of having blue eyes, which--unlikely as it is--could account for the majority of children with blue eyes.

House wrote "TEMPORARY PSYCHOSIS" on his dry erase board and put his marker down. Then, the camera pans the room and Chase gives his theory as to why the girl did that. We then see the "TEMPORARY PSYCHOSIS" circled on the board (but House put his marker down earlier). They argue for a few minutes with "TEMPORARY PSYCHOSIS" circled. House tells Cameron & Chase to give her medicine. We see the board again and "TEMPORARY PSYCHOSIS" is not circled.

QUOTES (24)

House: Who would you fire? Dr. Cameron: No one.House: Not an option. Dr. Cameron: If everyone took a pay cut and put in a few more hours, we could all stay for the same amount of money. House: Figures you'd try and come up with a solution where no one gets hurt. The problem is, the world doesn't work that way just 'cause you want it to.Dr. Cameron: Figures you'd stall and refuse to deal with the issue. Problem is, the world doesn't go away just because you want it to.

Dr. Cameron: I apologize if it looked like we weren't devoting our full attention to your daughter, but I assure you that we...Mrs. Simms: Oh please, save your pathetic insincerity for your boyfriend.House: You're wrong! She is in fact pathetically sincere.

Foreman: Have you seen the latest research? Chase: Yes, I have. What I haven't seen lately is a kid eating an apple or riding a bike. You Americans can't even compete with the rest of the world in basketball anymore, unless, of course, it's the type you play with a remote control on a big screen TV. Foreman: Right. House: Wait! Are you going to let him say that? He insulted our basketball teams!

Ms. Ayers: I understand, it's just, well, Jessica really doesn't have any friends.Foreman: Not one?Ms. Ayers: I've tried to help, make the kids include her more, but kids can be -Foreman: Kids?Ms. Ayers: Heh, I was going to say jerks.

Chase: She's morbidly obese. The "morbid" part of that raises alarms.Foreman: Come on, it takes decades to eat your way into a heart attack.Chase: Doesn't take decades to kill yourself. If I was that fat, I'd be pretty tempted to knock back a bottle of pills.

Cuddy: You need to get rid of one of your people.House: Absolutely. As soon as I do performance reviews. And then review the reviews, of course. Because a decision like this can't be made without proper, you know, review. Shouldn't take longer than a month, maybe two. Four at the most, unless it gets complicated.

House: Why would you support someone who screws up?Dr. Cameron: Because I'm not insanely insecure. And because I can actually trust another human being. And I am not an angry misanthropic son of a bitch.House: Sorry - you said you weren't angry.

House: I'm thinking I can convince Vogler it'll be more cost-efficient to keep all of them.Dr. Wilson: You should be able to pull that off. Most billionaires aren't very good with numbers.House: It will be more cost-efficient once I grab Cameron's ass, call Foreman a spade, and Chase... well, I'll grab his ass too.

Lucille: It's like my heart is on fire. Like it's, oh I don't know, like...House: Burning?Lucille: Exactly!House: Hmm. Sounds almost like heartburn.Lucille: So can you give me something?House: Like a thesaurus?Lucille: What?

NOTES (1)

ALLUSIONS (3)

House: On what? Sharon's plan for Gaza?House wittingly references the ongoing plight in the Middle East between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Ariel Sharon was the then-Prime Minister of the nation of Israel, and the Gaza Strip is a hot-bed area for focused violence and debate between the two peoples.

Foreman: It's some kind of game, House's own version of "Punk'd".Dr. Foreman makes reference to the popular MTV show Punk'd, hosted by Ashton Kutcher, where elaborate practical jokes are staged on other celebrities.

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